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International Repercussions of the Haitian Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

John E. Baur*
Affiliation:
Los Angeles, California

Extract

No Revolution worthy of the name has stopped at its national borders. For good and for evil revolution is exportable. Numerous studies have been made of the international and even the global results of such modern upheavals as the English, American, French, Russian, and Chinese revolutions. Although several treatises have been published on the Haitian Revolution of 1791-1804, and its creation of the first Negro republic and second independent nation in the New World, there has appeared no full-scale survey of its foreign significance. Inescapably, many histories of the Dominican Republic indicate the pervasive postrevolutionary relations of Haiti and her eastern neighbor on Hispaniola. Dominican life has been moulded in every sense by reactions to Haitian events, particularly the Haitian attempt to assimilate that republic and several eastward migrations of Haitian people. Otherwise, studies of the Haitian uprising have been limited to internal changes or the extensive diplomatic relations of the Black Republic.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1970

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References

* —"Haiti” is a term which was not used until the nation became independent of France in 1804. It was derived from the ancient Indian name meaning “highland.” Columbus, who discovered the island, called it “Española,” or “Hispaniola,” and the term is still applied geographically to the whole island. The term “Santo Domingo” was used by the Spaniards; thus was derived later the name for the Dominican Republic. When the French colonized the western third of Hispaniola they used the French form, “Saint Domingue.” To distinguish the French and Spanish colonies the terms “French Part” and “Spanish Part” are sometimes employed. Varieties such as “San Domingo” and “St. Domingo” are sometimes found in English-language works. After 1804, British and American writers frequently used the spelling “Hayti” and “Haytians,” now obsolete.

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